Maltese Italian

Maltese Italian is the Italian language spoken in Malta. It has received some influences from the Maltese language.

Map showing in light blue the areas where Italian was historically officially spoken, like Malta (and Corsica, Albania, Istria, etc..)

History
Tri-lingual voting document for the later cancelled 1930 elections in Malta
Enrico Mizzi (Prime Minister of Malta in 1950) was jailed in 1940 also for his pro-Italian language opinions

For many centuries since the Middle Ages and until 1934, Italian was the official language of Malta. Indeed, it was considered the language of culture in Malta since the Italian Renaissance.

In the 19th century Italian irredentists and Italian Maltese wanted to promote its use throughout Malta for plans to re-unify it to Italy as Malta was part of the Kingdom of Sicily up to 13th century. In the first decades of the 20th century there was even a struggle within Maltese society and politics over the "language problem", which came to a head before World War II.

Although only the rich could speak Italian, it was however understood by nearly all the population, and with Maltese being generally spoken by those less well-off, Italian was used as the official language in Malta until 1934.

But in 1933 the Constitution was withdrawn over the Government's budgetary vote for the teaching of Italian in elementary schools.[1] and furthermore the Italian was dropped by the British authorities from official language status in Malta in 1934, its place being taken by Maltese.

In 1935 there were manifestations against all these decisions, promoted by the Maltese fascists: the Nationalist Party of Enrico Mizzi declared that most of the Maltese population was supporting directly or indirectly the Italian Maltese's struggle.

One of the most fanatical supporters of the Italian language in Malta was Carmelo Borg Pisani.

The greatest Italian-speaking Maltese of the second half of the 20th century is Vincenzo Maria Pellegrini (1911-1997), who wrote most of his works in Italian and composed a poem in Maltese Italian in honor of Garibaldi in 1982, a hundred years after the death of 'Hero of the two worlds'.

Since the 1950s there has been a huge increase of Maltese people who are able to speak/understand the Italian language, thanks mainly to the broadcasts of the Italian television: from 15% (nearly 40,000) in 1950 to 36% (145,000) in 2002 and to 86% (360,000) in 2010.[2]

Furthermore, since 1970 the Maltese Italian is being considered for possible reinstatement as official language in Malta. In 1981, the government of Malta began to publish the monthly magazine Lo Stivale in Maltese Italian. The Malta Constitution allows 3 languages to be official in Malta and this rule is favorable to the reinstatement of the Italian language.[3]

See also

Notes
  1. "Le iniziative culturali italiane negli anni '30 per Malta e per le comunità maltesi all'estero". Retrieved 10 September 2014.
  2. Scarso, Vincenzo. "Ragusa Oggi". La lingua italiana nel Maltese. Ragusa, March 2017
  3. Italian language in Malta

Bibliography
  • Brincat, Giuseppe. Malta. Una storia linguistica. Ed. Le Mani. Recco, 2004
  • Brincat, J. La lingua italiana a Malta: storia, scuola e società. Istituto italiano di cultura. Valletta, 1992
  • Caruana, S. The Italian Job: the impact of input from television on language learning (in J. Borg, M. A. Lauri, & A. Hillman (eds.), Exploring the Maltese Media Landscape). Allied Newspapers Ltd. Valletta, 2009
  • Fabei, Stefano. Carmelo Borg Pisani (1915–1942) – eroe o traditore?. Lo Scarabeo Ed. Bologna, 2006
  • Hull, Geoffrey. The Malta Language Question: A Case Study in Cultural Imperialism. Said International, Valletta, 1993.


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